Jesus Would Be A Jetsetter, Says Televangelist Who Wants $54M Jet

DESTREHAN, LA — Prosperity gospel televangelist Jesse Duplantis is certain Jesus wouldn’t fly economy, or even first class, to spread the gospel in the 21st century. The New Orleans area televangelist is asking both God and his followers around the world to pony up $54 million so he can buy a Falcon 7X jet, one of the fastest luxury jets available commercially.

“I really believe that if the Lord Jesus Christ was physically on the Earth today, he wouldn't be riding a donkey," Duplantis said in a May 21 video. “He’d be in an airplane flying all over the world.”

Adherents to prosperity gospel, which is also known as the prosperity theology, the health-and-wealth gospel and the gospel of success, believe that affluence and physical wellbeing are always the will of God, and that increases in faith, positive speech and donations to religious causes will increase their material wealth.

Duplantis isn’t exactly traveling on the cheap. He already has three jets, all bought with contributions from his followers. If he gets the Falcon 7X luxury jet, his fleet of aircraft will match that of Donald Trump’s, The Washington Post reported.

In a tweet promoting his weekly video address, “This Week With Jesse,” Duplantis touted the “importance of using aviation as an amazing tool for evangelizing the world.”

But why does he need a fourth jet?

Duplantis has an answer. The Falcon 7X, which Business Insider described as “flirting with the sound barrier” with a speed of mach .90, or 690 mph, would be allow for non-stop flights to anywhere in the world. He also said he can “fly it for a lot cheaper, because I have my own fuel farm.”

“And that’s what’s been a blessing of the Lord,” he claims.

It also keeps Duplantis safely away from what another prosperity evangelist, Kenneth Copeland, called “a long tube with a bunch of demons” when the two appeared together in a widely circulated YouTube video. In it, they defended private jets as absolutely necessary tools in the business of saving souls.

Copeland, who traveled with the late televangelist and faith healer Oral Roberts, said mixing with the masses on commercial flights “got to the place where it was agitating [Roberts’] spirit."

Roberts had become famous, and people wouldn't leave him alone, Copeland said, explaining "they wanted him to pray for them and all that.”

“The world is in such a shape, we can’t get there without this,” Copeland said in the video of the need for luxury air travel. “We’ve got to have this. The mess that the airlines are in today I would have to stop, I’m being very conservative, at least 75 to 80, more like 90 percent of what we’re doing because you can’t get there from here.”

“It’s impossible,” Duplantis agreed.

In January, Copeland proclaimed “Glory to God! It’s ours!” in an announcement on his website that his ministry had acquired a Gulfstream V debt-free. The post explains that the “Holy Spirit confirmed to Brother Copeland that the Gulfstream V was the plane the Lord had set aside for [Kenneth Copeland Ministries].”

The purchase price wasn’t disclosed, though it was probably upward of $50 million, and Copeland said another $2.5 million was needed for upgrades. Also, he said, another $17 million was needed to build a new hangar, upgrade the existing runway and purchase special maintenance equipment.

In 2015, another prosperity preacher, Creflo Dollar, said he needed to raise $65 million to buy an opulent Gulfstream G650 to replace the World Changers Church’s 35-year-old jet and more effectively “share the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

His campaign was widely mocked. He said at the time the “devil tried so aggressively to discredit my voice.”
Creflo Dollar Ministries shut down the crowdfunding campaign that asked 200,000 followers to donate $300 each to buy the aircraft, but after its jet was destroyed in an accident, the ministry’s board of directors said it was ready to move forward and acquire the G650.

"We plan to acquire a Gulfstream G650 because it is the best, and it is a reflection of the level of excellence at which this organization chooses to operate,” the ministry said in a statement published by The Christian Post. “We, the World Changers family, so value the lives, the safety and the well-being of our pastors and leaders that we wish to provide to them the best air travel experience possible.”

Duplantis is facing similar mockery for his plea for a fancy, new jet. Jesus might not ride a donkey, but he wouldn’t need a luxury jet, some critics said.

“Actually,” Bob Conneen replied, “Jesus would fly coach if he needed to fly and speak and supper with ‘those demons’ on the commercial airlines. A captive audience and all. You sir are everything that is wrong in evangelism all balled up into one person.”

Here are some of the other tweets:

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